Lee Ainslie and Maverick Capital have reportedly incurred large losses on their holdings of telecom equipment maker Finisar Corp (FNSR).

FNSR is down 35% after forward guidance fell well short of investor expectations. FNSR is projecting Q4 EPS in a range between $0.31-0.35 on revenue of $235-250 million compared to analyst estimates of $0.48 on revenue of $268.55 million.

Finisar largely blamed the projected revenue miss on slowing demand in China. Finisar executives commented that there has been a "dramatic reduction in orders in China for a couple of months." Worse still, the company executives did not sound optimistic that the Chinese end demand would pick up any time soon.

The largest institutional holder of Finisar stock is value investor Lee Ainslie. Ainslie, is a "Tiger Cub" who previously worked for Julian Robertson before starting Maverick Capital. Ainslie manages one of the largest hedge funds in the world with assets of over $10 billion.

Nonetheless, Maverick Capital has taken a painful hit with the FNSR revenue guidance. As of December 31, 2010 Maverick Capital holds 4,290,906 million FNSR shares and 5.56% of the entire company. The projected losses are over $60 million assuming that Ainslie has not sold any shares in the last three months.

Ainslie initiated the FNSR position in late 2010. Since Ainslie is a deep value investor it is unlikely that he unloaded shares prior to the drubbing.

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